Here's a transcript of a live chat w/ Top Chef contestant Carla Hall on WaPo the other day. I'm impressed by the way she's reacted to the story arc they gave her for the season, which had her transforming from an absolute klutz to a lovable ditz to a serious challenger. All thru the power of reality television. Or something...

More Top Chef blather below the cut (there be spoilers)

Let's kiss the working week goodbye with a little musical number. Found via Serious Eats, who summed it up nicely: "it's Friday and you know what that means: it's time to party like a bunch of drunk Lego men (and one chicken)"

Fun article from WSJ (and really, how often do you hear that?) about great cocktails of comedy. I'm sure they missed a few but any piece that references the Flaming Homer, the Nasty Canasta Special, and the Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster is okay by me.

Nice interview with Carla from Top Chef on DCist. Was done before last night's final episode so 100 percent spoiler-free if you're watching on the delayed viewing programme.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 22 feb 09)

the Vodoun Effect: Funk & Sato from Benin's Obscure Labels, 1972-1975 :: Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou
Menagerie :: Nous Non Plus
Masters of Chicha, vol. 1 :: Juaneco y su Combo
Songs of Wood & Steel :: los Cenzontles with David Hidalgo
Unity :: Bobby Matos Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble
Tchamantché :: Rokia Traoré
Welcome to the Party :: various
Hot Bread :: Pulpo
Coba Coba :: Novalima
African Scream Contest :: various

this week's video feature: Rokia Traoré

If you haven't seen it, you must check out Pride and Prejudice done as Facebook news feed. Well, I should caveat that. IF you've read P&P AND you're on Facebook you should check it out. Cos it's fucking hilarious.

In other news, we were walking down Franklin St. tonight when the sole of my shoe fell off. That, as they say, was unexpected. For reasons not interesting enough to detail here, I actually had a spare shoe for that pair. Alas, it was a spare right shoe and the sole fell off the left shoe. If anyone local would care to recommended a good shoe repair place, please feel free.

CabVolt Mondays (pt 4)
from a bit later in the 80s and the days of great crossover potential™

Back from a long hiatus, it's time for "not just fun, but meme fun." Yoinked from FunnyStrange where you can see the explanation. Basically, google "unfortunately < your name here >" and hilarity will ensue. Or something. And away we go...

• Unfortunately, Georg was caught in the ensuing political storm
• Unfortunately, Georg felt isolated in the provincial area, and, separated from his fiance, he soon grew despondent
• Unfortunately, Georg did not keep a record of his publications in European journals
• Unfortunately, Georg died on May 30, 1947
• Unfortunately, Georg never produced another issue. The December 1997 issue was destined to remain his swan-song
• Unfortunately, Georg, who was the head of the weaving workshop at the time, had very little interest in the craft itself
• Unfortunately, Georg's Papageno was a disappointment to me as well.
• Unfortunately, Georg has no other opportunities to evaluate whether this rule however incomplete it may appear, can be generally applied
• Unfortunately, Georg doesn't like being called a sausage
• Unfortunately, Georg (the insect-man) was the sole provider of income for his younger sister, mother and father

Notes: last names omitted for consistency; skipped 2 entries that returned sentence fragments that were kinda gibberish; #10, in case you were wondering, is from a description of Kafka's "Metamorphosis" that mis-remembers Gregor Samsa's name.

Ketchup macarons. Yes, I said ketchup macarons. Srsly. If that's not the weirdest food story you've seen today, well then I've clearly underestimated the food-geek snazz of my audience.

In other news, last night's episode of Dollhouse both sucked and blew.

After hauling furniture around all afternoon, we went to see Anthony Bourdain speaking at DPAC tonight. Our first time there. Very nice. Bourdain was fun and about what I expected -- two hours of Bourdain being Bourdain. If you compare tonight's performance to his books it was much more Nasty Bits than Kitchen Confidential. Lots of riffing on Food Network and stories from his time spent making No Reservations and a few more thoughtful takes on the importance of travel, organics, slow food, etc. The fanboys and fangirls were a bit off-putting (standing ovation when he came out, applauding too much of the damn time). Reminded me a bit of seeing Rollins monologue back in the late 90s. Q&A at the end had questions from the audience selected and read by local radio guy Frank Stasio. Either the questions weren't all that good or Stasio's picks just weren't to my liking. He selected one about Rachael Ray, whom Bourdain had pretty much said everything he had to say about already. Another question about the whole Alice Waters, victory garden, locavore, high-end organics kerfuffle would've been nice. Still, it was a fun night out.
During his talk, Bourdain urged us all to go home and google "Sandra Lee Kwanzaa Cake". It does not disappoint.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 15 feb 09)

Menagerie :: Nous Non Plus
the Vodoun Effect: Funk & Sato from Benin's Obscure Labels, 1972-1975 :: Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou
Hot Bread :: Pulpo
Tchamantché :: Rokia Traoré
Welcome to the Party :: various
Songs of Wood & Steel :: los Cenzontles with David Hidalgp
Perspectiva Fragmentada :: John Santos Quintet
African Scream Contest :: various
Coba Coba :: Novalima
Clash Mandingue :: Kante Manfila & Sorry Bamba

this week's video feature: Novalima

I should try to remember that listening to my iPod makes for a much more enjoyable drive to work than NPR or sports yakkity-yakkers. This AM's playlist included
"What a Little Moonlight Can Do"
"Strange Overtones"
"Big Mess"
"Joe Turner's Blues"
"the Working Hour"
"Stompin' at the Savoy"

Also from this morning's commute, the lifetime achievement winner for vanity plates on minivans (self-mocking humor division): BORGMOBL

Cake Wrecks takes a pause from their usual (and delightful) pastry-related snark, to check out this super cool cupcake mosaic that was done at the Smithsonian on Friday. It's amazing. Do check it out.

I'm sure there are plenty of more improbable combinations, but still I didn't think I'd ever see Jay McCarroll and John Scalzi show up in the same blog post.

But what do I know...

Hope y'all have had a nice Valentine's Day. It's been all go 'round here lately. Thursday was Neighborhood College. Last night was tacos at Pinhook and Dollhouse. Today was shopping galore. Tomorrow is AV Geeks in Raleigh. And Monday, Screen Society is showing Age of Assassins "a darkly comic spy movie spoof" from Japan, 1967.

And then Tuesday I shall nap (hopefully not on the job)

Note: photo of Castello di Montalto. Click on the pic to see more of their photos on flickr or check out their website.

Some music linkage I wanted to share w/ y'all:
Nice story about Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys from the AV Club. On the occasion of the re-release of the TIffany Transcription CDs. We're lucky enough to have them at XDU and while I can't say I've listened to the entire set, I've heard a lot of different tracks over the years. My faves are his versions of swing standards like "Take the A Train" or "Woodchopper's Ball" (altho the disc w/ the McKinney Sisters is also quite awesome).
John Wesley Harding gets a little love from boing². Sadly his touring plans do not seem to include NC at this point.
Finally (and you may have already seen this making the rounds on the internets), Dennis Wheatley of Shrift shot this cool little movie at a Tokyo kaiten-zushi:

lost in a moment from dennis wheatley on Vimeo.

All I can say is thank Grom for Duke v. UNC tonight as it distracted the local sports yakkers away from Phelps and A-Rod bloviating. Here's a nice John Cole rant from the other day which captures my feelings pretty accurately.

I'm sure everyone who reads this blog (both of you, including the cat) has already seen this but coming up on Friday (2/13) is the Carpe Durham birthday party. At Pinhook. With a taco truck out front. But, like I said, you already knew that. Any sensible local HoD reader is gonna be checking out CD early and often for the food news you can use.

Should be a blast...

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 08 feb 09)

Tchamantché :: Rokia Traoré
Perspectiva Fragmentada :: John Santos Quintet
Coba Coba :: Novalima
African Scream Contest :: various
Welcome to the Party :: various
Around the World :: Señor Coconut & his Orchestra
Clash Mandingue :: Kante Manfila & Sorry Bamba
Reprezent :: Gipsy.cz
Gracias :: Omara Portuondo
Sira :: Ablaye Cissoko & Volker Goetze

this week's video feature: Omara Portuondo

Man, what a great week to be a holier-than-thou sports reporter. First, Michael Phelps and now Alex Rodriguez.
Who is more annoying, though? Sanctimonious bastards against pot or sanctimonious bastards against steroids? Even tho the anti-roids crowd have the advantage of the drugs they oppose being actually harmful, I think their constant harping on baseball tradition like they're high priests defending the cathedral pushes them to the win.

CabVolt Mondays (pt 3)

More fun on the internets: 1000 Mix Tapes. It's just getting started but the first 2 items are both little-heard gems. Dunno if the plan is to actually go to 1K but whichever it should be a worthwhile journey.

Note: title for this blogpost blatantly yoinked from Ms. Pants, who mentioned it in a story she was telling over dinner tonight. Sarah and I met up w/ her and w/ Sta Salsera for tacos and other assorted tasty treats at El Paraiso.

What fun. It's Bourdain v. Waters. That's the initial interview. There's also a followup in which he backs off on some of his more intemperate language but basically sticks to his guns. I wonder if he'll talk about any of this on the 19th. I wonder if he'll be taking questions from the audience at any point.

Interesting thing I saw on the internets #1: dolphin kitchen techniques. Srsly! That's pretty fucking amazing. And when you consider that they have no opposable thumbs, it's making pretty good use of the resources available.
#2 (and interesting in a whole other way): Mike Nelson (of MST3K fame) is eating nothing but bacon for the entire month of February. Wow. I am truly in awe. Nullum magnum ingenium and all that...

I was planning to write something about the whole AP v. Shepherd Fairey thing but Sarah got there first.
I'm more militantly anti-AP: I think regardless of the legal merits of their argument, they're clearly being copyright bullies, including their cropping of the original photo for maximum damage and the fact that they've been sending out biased stories w/ very biased headlines as "news" to all their clients all day long. But, again, just because they're acting badly doesn't mean they don't have a case.

Let's just cut to the chase, shall we? Dick Cheney and everyone who's carrying water for him, they want Americans to suffer and die. After 8 years of hiding behind the flag and the Bible, it really comes down to that. The only way they can justify their massive record of incompetence, malfeasance and idiocy is if things now get fucked up even worse. They don't love this country. They love power. If there's ever another Republican elected in your lifetime, remember that when they start talking about how dissent is wrong and you have to support the President and all the usual "love it or leave it" bullshit. These people want you to suffer and die to prove that they're right and we're wrong.

My question is this: just how many of the bloviating gasbags who have been dogpiling on Michael Phelps for the last two days do you think have sparked one up at some point in their lives? Wherever you set the over/under on that one, I'm taking the over.

More details from Eddie Izzard (found via Sullivan)

CabVolt Monday (a slight return)... another mid-80s track, partly cos that's when I first got into their stuff so it's some of my favorites, and partly cos there's a ton of it on youtube.

Took a pause from watching DVRed Super Bowl to watch DVRed Puppy Bowl. Am now experiencing cute overdose. Not too much struck me as exciting from the early going of either the game (Steelers FTW) or the commercials (Bud Light ads suck as much as their beer). I did like the Doritos crystal ball ad. And can I just say, Bob Dylan and will.i.am for Pespi? The hell?
2Q update: Forgot to mention the Audi history of car chases ad, which I also quite liked. At this point, the game's looking a lot closer.
Halftime update: or maybe not
Brooooce update: "10th Ave. Freezeout" "Born to Run" "Working on a Dream" "Glory Days"
3Q update: AZ incapable of not shooting itself in foot; game over
4Q update: obviously I know nothing about football